Operation Valhalla: Writings on War, Weapons, and Media

Friedrich Kittler

Published by Duke University Press 2021

Operation Valhalla

Writings on War, Weapons, and Media

Friedrich Kittler
Edited by: Ilinca Iurascu , Geoffrey Winthrop-Young and Michael Wutz

In the series A Cultural Politics Book

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781478013181

Overview
Contents

About this book

Operation Valhalla collects eighteen texts by German media theorist Friedrich Kittler on the close connections between war and media technology.

Author / Editor information

Friedrich Kittler (1943–2011) was a Professor of Media Aesthetics and History at Humboldt University in Berlin and the author of numerous books, including Discourse Networks 1800/1900 and Gramophone, Film, Typewriter.

Ilinca Iurascu is Associate Professor of German at the University of British Columbia.

Geoffrey Winthrop-Young is Professor of German at the University of British Columbia.

Michael Wutz is Rodney H. Brady Presidential Distinguished Professor of English at Weber State University.

Reviews

“The preeminent thinker of media in the past half century, Friedrich Kittler speaks to deep concerns of the digital age in a voice that is philosophical, wry, learned, obscure, indirect, profound, and always stimulating. To read him is to have your neurons rearranged. Kittler’s work is essential.”

-- John Durham Peters, coauthor of Promiscuous Knowledge: Information, Image, and Other Truth Games in History

“As demonstrated by his famous mapping of the three media operations—recording, transmitting, processing—onto ‘trenches,’ ‘blitz,’ and Ronald Reagan's Star Wars, war for Friedrich Kittler was the principle that drove media history. Although a provocation for whiggish as well as for critical thinking that found the telos of media history in humanity's progress toward democracy or capitalism's perversion of democracy, Kittler's highly original approach to media analysis opened up a road to a posthumanistic theory of media which has never been more timely than today.”

-- Bernhard Siegert, author of Cultural Techniques: Grids, Filters, Doors, and Other Articulations of the Real

“Operation Valhalla is the best resource available for understanding the central role of warfare in Kittler’s thought and an all too relevant book for our troubled times.”

-- Anders Engberg-Pedersen Critical Inquiry

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Editors’ Preface Ilinca Iurascu, Geoffrey Winthrop-Young and Michael Wutz Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Introduction: The Wars of Friedrich Kittler Geoffrey Winthrop-Young Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part I: Guns, Germans, and Steel: The Hardware(s) of War
1 Free Ways Geoffrey Winthrop-Young Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	53
2 A Short History of the Searchlight Geoffrey Winthrop-Young Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	62
3 Fragments of a History of Firearms Michael Wutz Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	69
4 Tanks Michael Wutz Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	73
Part II: Wires, Waves, and Wagner
5 Noises of War Michael Wutz Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	79
6 Playback: A World War History of Radio Drama 91 Michael Wutz Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	91
7 Operation Valhalla Geoffrey Winthrop-Young Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	110
8 When the Blitzkrieg Raged Geoffrey Winthrop-Young Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	117
Part III: Vanishing Animals and Returning Nomads
9 Animals of War: A Historical Bestiary Geoffrey Winthrop-Young Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	123
10 On Modern Warfare: A Conversation with Alexander Kluge Geoffrey Winthrop-Young Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	127
11 Of States and Their Terrorists Geoffrey Winthrop-Young Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	136
Part IV: Love and War
12 Manners of Death in War Michael Wutz Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	151
13 Ottilie Hauptmann Ilinca Iurascu Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	166
Part V: Pynchon’s War
14 On a Novel That Would Not Only Be Fiction Michael Wutz Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	193
15 De Nostalgia Geoffrey Winthrop-Young Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	198
16 Media and Drugs in Pynchon’s Second World War Michael Wutz Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	211
Part VI: Kittler on Kittler
17 Biogeography Geoffrey Winthrop-Young Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	227
18 Theology Geoffrey Winthrop-Young Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	233
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	235
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	273
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	287
Credits Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	295

Language: English
Publisher: Duke University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 312

eBook

Published: March 2, 2021
ISBN: 9781478013181